


All the Other Stories

by Annariel



Category: Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors, Doctor Who: Target Novels - Various Authors, Doctor Who: Virgin New Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 14:26:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2584622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe there was something, passing from hand to hand, that created all those other Doctor Who stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. House in the Street of St. John the Beheaded

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the who_at_50, who@51 fanwork-athon.
> 
> Thanks to Fredbassett for a last minute SpaG beta.

Chigi insisted on opening the door to every room as they made their way out of the house in the alley of St. John the Beheaded. The house was full of heavy dark panels and the faint smell of polished wood lay underneath the pungent aroma of the canals.

"We don't have time for this," Steven hissed. "The guards could be back any moment."

"If we don't at least look we will learn nothing."

Steven sighed in frustration. There was very little in the house that gave away the fact its owner was an alien, and even less that revealed what he might be up to. Chigi, of course, was looking for more mundane intelligence.

"More books," reported Chigi peering into another room. "Would that we had the time to check through them for papers."

Steven peered over his shoulder. It was a small room, some kind of study. Books were stacked neatly on shelves and the desk. 

Chigi grabbed a book at random from the shelf by the door. "All the Other Stories," he read from the title. "An English book no less." 

He flicked through the pages. Steven listened to the rustle of the paper. It was a small book, fitting easily into the palm of Chigi's hand. Nothing, incriminating or otherwise, fell out of it.

"We _are_ in a hurry," Steven urged.

Chigi nodded and handed the book to Steven. "Take this, we will look through it later."


	2. The City of the Elders

The corridors of the city were oddly free of personality. Dodo had noticed it when they first arrived but she had already been travelling long enough to know that every culture had its quirks. Still it felt like a depressing place to say goodbye.

"Do you have to stay?" she asked Steven.

"I'm needed here. I was going to have to stop travelling with him eventually." Steven smiled down at her a little sadly.

Dodo nodded in understanding. "It won't be the same without you, though."

Steven gave her a hug. "I know. Look after the old man for me will you?"

Dodo laughed quietly. "Don't let him hear you saying that."

"Oh, and you had better take this."

Steven fished around in his bag and then pressed a small book into her hands.

"What is it?" Dodo turned it over. `All the Other Stories,' it said on the cover.

"I don't rightly know. It seems important. Hang onto it."

Dodo tucked it into a pocket of her skirt. It felt warm against her side and she felt, obscurely, as though it was considering her. She didn't take it out, but she continued to have a vague awareness of its presence as she made her way through an alternative revolutionary France, and the book was still there next time she put on the outfit when the Tardis landed in 1966.


	3. James Stevens' Front Room

The book was the only thing Dodo had really owned when we met. God alone knows how she had kept it with her and she couldn't say herself, except that each time she had been moved from one institution to another the book had been there, popped inside a drawer or falling out of a pocket.

It was only a small book but it had a surprising number of pages full of tiny print on wafer thin paper. It was full of stories, children's tales weaving in and out of each other, curling back and forth in contradictions and paradoxes. Dodo had found it comforting to read.

I was tempted to keep it, to remind me of her, but in the end that didn't feel right. There was an address that kept cropping up in the stories, though, so, eventually, three months after her death, I packaged it up and posted it on.


	4. The House on Allen Road

When Ace pushed open the front door it banged against a package that scooted across the wooden floor. She picked it up and turned it over. A long thin cardboard package, just the right size to fit through the letterbox.

"Professor! Professor!" she called. "Post!"

She flipped it over again. It was addressed to `The occupant of the House on Allen Road' and she paused to wonder if it might be a bomb or something. She carried it through to the kitchen.

The Doctor was standing by the window staring out into the rain and tapping the handle of his umbrella against his chin. He had been standing like that when she left, banging the front door behind her in protest at their enforced inactivity.

"Package," she said, waving it at him.

The Doctor glanced her way. "What do you think is in it?"

"Another test?" Ace flipped it over again. "I dunno. How small could they make bombs in the 1970s?"

"It's not a bomb."

Ace shrugged and pulled off the packaging. Inside was a small thin book with a soft leather cover. 

"All the Other Stories," she read the title and flipped though the pages.

"Hmm...," The Doctor looked at her again. "Put it on the bookshelf, I'll read it later. I have things to do."

"Finally," Ace breathed. "What's the plan?"

"Follow me." The Doctor marched out of the kitchen. Ace glanced at the book and then stuffed it in her backpack. It would serve him right for being mysterious again. If he wanted to read it he could ask her where it was.


	5. The Number 42 Bus to Clapham Common

"Really, dearie, I think you should be grateful I rescued you." Iris sipped at her pink gin and regarded her temporary passenger warily. She had a nasty feeling that she was straying outside her normal genre and that always made her nervous.

Ace McShane glowered angrily at her and clutched the very large gun she was carrying to her chest. Iris didn't like guns on board the bus, they spoiled the cosy atmosphere but she'd not had time to prize it from the woman's hands when she brought her aboard.

Ace peered out of the windows into the void beyond.

"No sign of them Daleks," Iris added. "I think we can safely say we've avoided them."

"What is this place?" Ace asked.

"Time and Space machine. Disguised as a bus. Clever in'it?"

Ace sniffed. "It seems to be smaller on the inside."

Iris sighed. Really the Doctor spoiled everything. "Part of its charm," she snapped at the other woman. "I don't believe in being showy, unlike some people I could mention."

Ace glared at her again, but there was a thoughtful look in her eyes. She peered out of the windows once more, turning around on the seat to get a proper look. Iris couldn't help a slightly nervous glance outside. After all, Daleks could be very tricksy. But there was nothing to be seen. She swirled the gin in her hands and took a gulp.

"Anywhere you'd like to be dropped off?" Iris asked.

"Yeah, somewhere near where you picked me up if possible. Preferably Dalek-free though," and this time Ace actually smiled at her, which was an improvement.

"If you say so. It's a nasty time and place, though."

"Yeah, I know, but I was on a mission."

Iris sniffed to convey her opinion of missions. 

Ace fingered the worn velvet on the seats and Iris watched as her eyes darted around the bus's interior, taking in the bookshelves and cabinets. 

"I think," said Ace slowly, "that you might like this. You can consider it a thank you for rescuing me." 

She pulled a small book out of a pocket in her combat suit and proffered it to Iris.

Iris glanced at the cover and then shook her head. "No thank you, dearie. I can make up all the other stories I want without any help."


	6. House Lungbarrow

House Lungbarrow creaked in the darkness. Leela listened while she ate, trying to learn the sounds, trying, in a way, to learn the Doctor and to understand him in relation to this place where he had been loomed and raised. 

"So when's it due?" Dorothée's question came as a surprise.

"What?"

Then there was chaos for a while as they coped with a drudge attack.

"I think I have something you will need," Dorothée said afterwards as she strapped up Leela's broken wrist.

"I do not need anything."

Leela detected exasperation in Dorothée's sigh. "Will you just quit being so proud and stubborn for a moment and let me help, one companion to another?"

Leela sniffed and held her head high.

"Look, it's this book. Because the looms and everything, I don't think they are in all the stories. That means that you having the first child on Gallifrey since the Pythia's curse is one of the other stories too?"

"The other stories? Your words make no sense."

"Yeah, look, I don't quite know how it works but I'm sure it protects and weaves these, these other stories. I think time has got folded or warped somehow and there are lots of realities and this isn't necessarily the main one and it needs some help to keep it going. And I think, right now, you and your child are going to need help more than I am. I've had quite enough story to be going on with. I can manage on my own."

Around them the house sighed and creaked again.


	7. Lunaversity Transit Station

Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart was late for class. She hopped off the train, dodging between the crowd, anticipating the movements of the people as she went so that she popped out into the university grounds at the front of the swell. She set off at a run towards the Maths building then, out of nowhere, someone bumped into her, sending her tumbling off her feet.

She landed easily in a crouch and then stood up. 

The figure in front of her was a nightmare of bone and cybernetics. She instinctively took a step backwards. 

"Hey, just keep cool a minute," the man almost whined and he pulled off the skull helmet to reveal a rather scrawny dark-haired figure beneath. He was wearing an earpiece and seemed too small for the bulky armour he was wearing.

Kadiatu didn't step closer but she was relieved to see him humanised.

"Sorry about the get up. They're very keen on it. I'm supposed to give you this." He thrust a book at her.

"Why?" she asked.

"Well, I don't know, do I? I'm only a little brother."

"What's your name?"

He frowned at that. "I'm not sure if I'm supposed to tell you."

Kadiatu took another step backwards.

"All right, all right. I'm Fitz. Will you just take the damn book? You have no idea the trouble I had to go to to get it. I had to break through five Gallifreys."

"You're making no sense you know."

"Yeah, probably not. I've lost my smokes. Anyway, take the book?"

Cautiously Kadiatu took the book from him. 

He smiled in relief. "Well that's that done then. Be seeing you?" He said it like it was some kind of joke she was supposed to get.

Then he vanished.


	8. The Sphere of the People

"Thank you," Kadiatu said to Benny.

They were standing on the shores of a lake. It formed a quiet idyll. A gentle grassy slope led down to a pebbled beach. In the middle distance there were forests of pine trees and the air had a faint pink hue like a sunset. Beyond them the horizon curled upwards, the dim lights of a city visible through the haze.

"You did most of it yourself," Benny pointed out.

She was still a little wary of the other woman, for all the Doctor insisted she was now safe or, at least, sane.

Kadiatu skimmed a stone across the surface of the lake. It bounced five times before it sank beneath the water. If she skimmed another it would, no doubt, behave the same, angles carefully calculated.

"Do you ever wonder," Kadiatu said after a moment, "if we are just a side show?"

"Well, we're certainly the sidekicks," Benny said a little ruefully.

"No, not that, side stories. We're not really a part of the main narrative we're just other stories around the edges."

"No," said Benny confidently. "That all sounds a bit metaphysical to me. We're real enough."

Kadiatu made a low humming sound but didn't seem convinced. Then she fished a book out of a pocket and handed it to Benny.

"All the Other Stories?" Benny asked, reading the cover.

Kadiatu nodded. "Yes, I think my part in this is over. I think the people who gave it to me expected me to do more with it, to be honest, but family legend advised being careful of such things. You should keep it, though, you may know what to do with it."


	9. The Braxiatel Collection

"You've been doing some very interesting research lately," Braxiatel began without preamble as he entered Benny's office.

Benny glanced up from her terminal and frowned at him. "I'm thinking of writing a paper about temporal paradoxes and shared myths," she said. "And you shouldn't snoop on your staff's data searches."

"Temporal paradoxes centered on the Doctor? Do you think that is wise?" Braxiatel sat down in the chair opposite her.

"Well I have some questions I want answered just for myself. But I thought it might make an interesting paper as well."

Benny saw Braxiatel's eyes fall on `All the Other Stories' which she had been using to cross-reference her research. 

He picked it up off the desk cautiously. "I used to own this once," he said in faint surprise.

"I believe you lost track of it in Venice. At least that's the last time it is mentioned in the catalogue," Benny waved her hand vaguely at the screen. "It doesn't say where you got it from."

"I don't recall. Fascinating. I must have acquired it right back at the start of everything before I was cataloguing carefully. Still it is good to have it back in the collection."

Benny coughed pointedly causing Braxiatel to raise an eyebrow and look at her.

"You don't intend to return it?"

"No, I think it should go right, right back to where the whole thing started."

"And where's that?"


	10. Barnes Common

"It's bloody cold here," Jason complained.

"It's November, of course it's cold. I did tell you to wear something warm." Benny wondered why she'd brought Jason along with her, but it had seemed fitting somehow.

"You also said we'd only be here for a minute or two." Jason rubbed his hands together and jogged from foot to foot.

"Shouldn't be long now." Benny could hear the sound of a car in the mist. 

"What's that?" Jason asked.

"A car."

"Well obviously. Do you know who it is?"

"Ian Chesterton. He's a scientist on the way back from a failed job interview." Benny pulled the book out of her pocket and began to flick through the pages. It glowed a pale blue colour.

"What's that?"

"I think it's a sort of parallel universe generator. Only a benign one. It doesn't seem to cause any harm. Well mostly doesn't cause harm, some of its stories are a little brutal but overall..."

Benny held the book up. The car engine cut out. There was a long moment's silence.

"Why's he stopped?"

"Car broke down."

"It sounded all right to me."

Benny gave Jason a look. Then she sighed slightly, raised her arm and threw the book hard into the road. It never hit the tarmac instead a woman staggered out of the fog, blood on her coat and her stockings in tatters. 

Benny pulled Jason further back from the road.

"Who was that? Shouldn't we help her?" he hissed, sensing her need to hide.

Benny shook her head. "That was Barbara Wright and just around now she'll be passing out on the bonnet of Ian's car."


End file.
